Simple, four-step plan for a less stressful 2019

When I arrive at Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Wilmslow home, I walk in to his kitchen to find him strumming the guitar.

“I love playing,” he explains, “and it’s great for de-stressing.”

Stress is exactly what I’m here to talk about.

Dr Chatterjee, who has been a GP for more than 17 years, has just written his second book, The Stress Solution – the follow up to Amazon #1 bestseller, The 4 Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move and Sleep your way to a Longer, Healthier Life.

“When I wrote the first book, the pillar nearly everybody spoke to me about was the stress and relaxation one,” Chatterjee says.

“Around the same time I was noticing that nearly all the problems I was seeing in my surgery were related to stress.

“Whether it was a low libido, insomnia, inability to concentrate, not enjoying their job, depression or anxiety, it was clear that stress was often the root cause.”

Yet he believes we’ve become so used to feeling stressed that we’ve normalised it.

“So much has been written about eating healthily, exercising – even sleep has been getting a lot of attention.

“But because you can’t quantify stress like weight or sleep, it felt like stress wasn’t getting the same attention, despite the fact that up to 80% of GP appointments are stress-related.”

So this is his prescription: The Stress Solution: The 4 Steps To Reset Your Body, Mind, Relationships & Purpose follows the same winning formula as his first book – taking you through revolutionarily simple steps to de-stress all four corners of your life.

As well as his medical background, the 41 year-old star of BBC One’s Doctor in the House draws on his own experiences as a busy, working father of two, juggling his patients with hosting the No 1 iTunes podcast, Feel Better, Live More, which has had more than one million downloads.

So why are we all so overwhelmed?

“Our lives are supposed to be more convenient because of technology, but in reality it’s suffocating us,” Chatterjee says.

“We’re bombarded with e-mails, Whatsapp messages, texts and social media alerts showing us what a great time everybody else is having.

“We’re all trying to have these amazing lives with a constant need to do more and have more.”

Not to mention that it often takes two salaries to raise a family these days.

“Stress seeps into our health in other ways. If you’re overwhelmed, you won’t find time to nourish yourself through good food choices or exercise.

“Instead, you’ll try to soothe your stress with sugar, wine-o-clock or binge-watching Netflix until midnight.”

To understand stress, he says, we have to go back to evolution: “The stress response evolved to keep us safe. If a lion was chasing us, a series of biological changes happened in the body to help get us away from danger.

“But when people have those responses day to day – sugar pouring into their bloodstream, their blood pressure soaring, cortisol and adrenaline pumping around – they begin to feel tired, sluggish and anxious.

“They put on weight, they can’t sleep, their blood pressure becomes high and the sugar in their bloodstream raises their risk of type 2 diabetes.

“People talk of it as a diet-driven illness, but stress is also a contributor.”

Besides contributing to the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and strokes, stress is a key player in insomnia, burn-out and auto-immune disease, as well as many mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression.

“Cortisol kills the nerve cells in your hippocampus, a small organ located within your brain, linked to memory, which is why chronic stress is linked to Alzheimer’s,” Chatterjee says.

“When you’re stressed, your body also diverts its resources away from non-vital functions like digestion and hormone production that aren’t crucial to survival, so you get digestive issues and your libido goes.

As stress mounts, you react to everything in a disproportionate way: “You see problems where no problems exist, because stress causes you to use the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala, rather than the logical one.

“Your brain is on high alert to danger, but from a deadline rather than a lion.”

This book prescribes a mixture of tips he follows himself and things his patients have tried and reported back to him as having worked: “I’m not going to tell you to do two hours of yoga a day. What the book gives people is simple tools they can use in a busy life.”

Such as? “I talk a lot about technology: I’m not against it but I’ve put boundaries in place that have changed my life.

“I have an old-fashioned alarm clock to wake me up and I leave my phone in the kitchen from 9pm onwards.

“I took notifications off my phone so I’m not drawn into it, and have a golden hour in the morning, where I won’t look at my phone at all.

“I have an out-of-office on my e-mail that explains I only check my e-mails on set days.

“I used to spend a Friday evening replying to 100 e-mails, but now I’ve taken back that time and spend it with my family instead, and I don’t feel guilty about not replying to people.”

For the high-powered but time-pressed, carving out space for hobbies – such as guitar playing – or simply getting off screens and outside, is even more essential.

“I love music but I was flitting from song to song on my phone. So I now have an old- fashioned record player and I listen to an entire album, in the order the songs should be listened to.

“I don’t binge-watch TV shows because delayed gratification is a good de-stressor.

“As a family we play cards, read, muck about in the garden and do park runs.

“Lastly, it sounds simple, but do what you love.”

Another key theme running through the book is to prioritise human connection over electronic communication. “Be around people you love,” urges Chatterjee, and make sure you put your phone down while you’re with them.

Chatterjee knows we’ll never completely rid ourselves of stress – nor should we wish to.

“Stress is like coffee: the right amount gets you up and going, and motivates you to be the best version of yourself.

“But like coffee, too much stress can tip you over the edge. So it’s not about eliminating all stress, but keeping tabs on it, so you’re energised by life, rather than burnt out by it.” – The Telegraph